(CNN) - Former Sen. Rick Santorum, a probable GOP presidential candidate, canceled a trip to Iowa this past weekend because one of his children was very sick.

Aides close to the Pennsylvania Republican tell CNN that Santorum's daughter, Isabella Maria, became very ill on Friday. The three year old girl was born with Trisomy 18, a condition where a person is born with three number 18 chromosomes rather than the normal two. Many newborns suffering from this disease rarely survive beyond a week after birth, with those who do survive battling serious medical conditions.FULL POST

(CNN) - When President Barack Obama sets up his 2012 re-election campaign, it will be headquartered in a downtown Chicago office building.

A Democratic source confirms to CNN that the re-election campaign will be housed in One Prudential Plaza, a skyscraper which faces the city's Grant Park, where Obama held his 2008 election night victory rally. The story was first reported earlier Monday by Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times.FULL POST

Capitol Hill (CNN) – Consider this a spending battle intervention. Congress has two weeks to come up with another spending bill or government will shut down, sending millions of federal workers home and delighting producers of Sunday talk shows.

Instead of focusing on the potential Smithsonian-closing drama, this week American Sauce offers a cut-to-the-chase map of the spending battle reality.

Congress may get its closest yet to a shutdown and we explain why, without adding exclamation marks about passport offices shuttering.

Want to cut through all the jibber jabber and get your hands around the spending battle that could shut down government? Listen to our podcast here.

(CNN) Amid a delicate dance to cut the budget in Congress, agitated religious leaders in Washington said Monday that the cuts being proposed are too deep.

Food aid for people at home and abroad, mosquito nets, and Head Start preschool programs are all on the chopping block. That, many religious leaders say, has crossed a moral line. In response, they have begun a fast – a hunger strike.FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - Politics is serious business - but not all the time.

Harnessing his influence

New York City Michael Bloomberg dusted off his acting chops by joining the cast of Broadway musical hits "Mama Mia," "Hair," and "The Little Mermaid" among other shows for the Inner Circle charity dinner, the New York Post reports.Full Story

(CNN) – He off-handedly questioned President Obama's birthplace last week – a comment that drew strong rebukes from some quarters - but now business mogul Donald Trump says he's more concerned than ever that the president was, in fact, not born in the United States.

Trump – who, however improbably, claims to be considering a presidential bid – said Monday that since his first public statement on the issue last week, "a lot of facts are emerging" that are making him question more seriously where Obama was born.FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - A new national poll suggests that neither party has an edge as Congress returns to the nation's capital with the clock ticking towards a possible government shutdown in just a week and a half.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday, 46 percent of Americans say they prefer President Barack Obama's approach on budget negotiations, with 45 percent saying they prefer congressional Republicans' approach to the tough choices involved in both cutting programs to reduce the deficit and at the same time maintain needed federal programs.FULL POST